Heiss was asked if the unkempt appearance of the vehicle maintenance property bothered him.
"I did complain," he said. "I asked them about this (he said pointing at piles of lumber and other materials he claimed the city has left for two years). I didn't want that stuff blowing into my yard during a hurricane.
"Those pipes! There are rats living in those pipes."
A nearby neighbor confirmed he had a rat problem in the neighborhood each time the city failed to mow a field next door to the piles of pipes.
Heiss said he's been cited about unlicensed and inoperable vehicles in his yard.
"I went down and licensed them," he said. "They made me get into each car and move them (to show they were operable). I didn't see them go down the street making anyone else prove their cars were operable.
"The city can make me build a fence and put my cars behind a fence, but they can leave all their stuff out where everyone has to look at it."
When two different zoned properties such as industrial and residential abut each other, code enforcement ordinances that apply to one may not apply to the other, said Carr.
Planting vegetative buffers costs money as does installing irrigation, he said. Some businesses may not be able to afford that, he said.
The CRA ultimately voted unanimously Monday to approve the application for permitting and to forward it to the council with a recommendation that the project be forwarded to the Tree Board to address landscaping around the Franklin Street side of the old Sebring Power Station property.
In a memo to City Administrator Scott Noethlich, dated Oct. 27, CRA Executive Director Pete Pollard wrote that the CRA does not believe that the proposed pole barn should be required to have landscaping in the immediate proximity of the building as there is no landscaping within the perimeter of the fenced in utilities property now.
"However, the CRA does believe that the perimeter of the property along Park Street and on Franklin Street should be landscaped in such a way that it creates a vegetative buffer around the complex," Pollard wrote.
"This could be done with hedges, trees or the treatment to be utilized along the Sebring Parkway fence. That treatment which was approved by the Tree Board, called for the planting of Confederate Jasmine along the fence line. The jasmine vine would grow across the fence, turning it into a visual buffer."
The board members agreed that with all the emphasis made on landscaping, any standards that apply to the private sector should also apply to the city, Pollard said Tuesday.
Highlands Today reporter Joe Seelig can be reached at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com .
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